Billie Trial Ends With Jury Locked In Disagreement

WEST PALM BEACH — The panther-killing case against Seminole Indian Chief James Billie ended in a mistrial Thursday after the deadlocked jury refused to budge.

Jurors said they were split 7 to 5 in favor of acquitting Billie of taking and possessing an endangered Florida panther in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.

The vote did not change since deliberations began shortly after noon Wednesday. Most of the jurors would not comment, but Dennis Smith, a cable repair technician for Southern Bell, confirmed that the panel was troubled that Billie did not need to know the cat he shot Dec. 1, 1983, was of an endangered species in order to be convicted.

Billie, 43, serving his third term as chairman of the 1,800-member tribe, refused to comment, but one of his attorneys declared a victory and said the case highlighted inequities in the white man's system of justice.

''The odd and cruel irony of this case is that Chief Billie is being prosecuted for taking an animal that never would have been endangered had white people not developed South Florida,'' said Bruce Rogow, a Nova University law professor.

The prosecution's expert witness testified that ''human beings'' are responsible for the demise of the Florida panther. Fewer than 50 Florida panthers are believed to exist today.

Jurors were told that development in South Florida, and the resulting destruction of wildlife habitat, is the primary cause of the panther decline. They also were told that a number of panthers had been killed by motorists who accidentally ran into them or by hunters who shot them.

Rogow, however, said the jurors' lack of consensus was far more significant in light of what they were not told, what Rogow called the heart of Billie's defense.

Rogow contended that the Seminoles never were told they could not hunt panthers, and that Billie grew up believing that, like the generations of Indians before him, he could hunt on Indian property without government regulation.

However, U.S. District Judge James Paine agreed with the government attorneys' legal interpretation that ignorance of the law is not a defense. Paine repeatedly ruled that the government needed to prove only that Billie shot an animal intentionally and voluntarily and that the animal was a Florida panther, known by its Latin name, Felis concolor coryi.

Rogow said the judge's decision was tantamount to making Billie fight ''with both his hands tied behind his back.''

As a result, the biological classification of the hide and skull confiscated from Billie's hunting camp became the focus of both the government and defense case.

The government needed to prove the cat was a Florida panther, and it presented two expert witnesses who said the animal, with its white flecks, kinked tail and cowlick, was a classic example of the endangered species.

One witness, Laurie Wilkins of the Florida State Museum, said the chances of those three characteristics occurring in another subspecies of cat was 1 in 79,000.

Rogow and his co-counsel, Michael Kobiolka, tried to convince the jury that research on the panther was incomplete and that nobody could name with certainty the characteristics of the Florida cat.

The jury, however, apparently was not hung up over classification of the animal. Jurors never examined the hide confiscated from Billie and told the marshal to take away the pelt that filled the courtroom with a putrid smell when prosecutors displayed it during the trial.

What's more, none of the questions posed to the judge in notes written by foreman John Ehmke dealt with the identification issue. All the inquiries were questions of law.

Other key testimony showed that Billie shot a tawny, white-flecked cat one night after his hunting companion caught the reflection of the animal's eyes with a high-beam spotlight mounted on a pickup truck.

Miguel Contu testifed that Billie, holding a flashlight and Thompson Contender single-shot pistol, followed the greenish eyes into the brush. Contu heard a shot and Billie returned, saying he had shot a kuwachobee, which means ''big cat'' in the Seminole's Miccosukee language.

Contu said Billie took an-

other bullet from the truck and told him to follow with a rifle to the palmetto bush where the wounded cat lay. Contu said Billie, standing 20 feet from the animal, fired his pistol again, missing. He then took the rifle from Contu and shot the cat in the head, killing it.

Contu and Billie later posed with the dead animal for pictures. The pictures were shown to the jury. Billie then skinned the cat and ate its meat, something he joked about Wednesday. He said panther tasted like McDonald's hamburgers.

Although Billie did not testify, he told reporters he knew the animal was a panther and went after it. Florida panthers are held in high esteem in the Seminole religion.